MacOS Browser
MacOS has it’s own browser, which is called Safari. It has a beautiful design but I do not prefer Safari because of you blocked all Apple connections as mentioned in the other section of the MacOS guide, then Safari will refuse to connect. You could possibly spend time figuring out what connections should be unblocked but then you will start sending apple data again. So then you are back to square one.
Instead we are going to look into other browsers. I myself use Brave Browser to be my daily driver as it strikes the right amount of blocking and privacy while still being fully functional. The only thing hindering me here is my DNS which… Well I do block a lot of things, but thats a story for later.
I use Brave Browser for serious things and Waterfox for accounts that require a less hardened browser. This would be streaming services and other similars, we need to separate those.
Anyways. Lets get into the Browsers
Browsers
Brave Browser
Brave browser is a hardened version of Chromium. It is by default pretty strong on its standards but we can do better even. This is the browser I would recommend you to tell people to move to if they love Google Chrome as it’s a redesign of that when it comes to looks but with much stronger privacy.
Waterfox
Waterfox is a hardened version of Firefox and I found it to be the best browser for watching. I mean obviously it does have some privacy implementations and it is still strong. Mainly it is about striking a balance for me, to be able to watch and be private.
Brave Settings
Brave is a pretty good browser when it comes to privacy. It is a lot easier to tell a family member to switch to brave than switch to something like Firefox which is also an option for privacy, its just harder to setup than brave. Brave out of the box is very private.
Settings
• Click on the “Appearance” button in the left menu.
• Disable all things within the entire page.
• I keep “Show bookmarks bar” to Always as I do use bookmarks.
• Click on the “Shields” button on the left bar.
• Set “Trackers & ads blocking” to “Aggressive”.
• Set “Upgrade connections to HTTPS” to “Strict”.
• Confirm that “Block scripts” is off as it can break everything.
• Set “Block fingerprinting” to “Strict, may break sites” I personally never had issues.
• Set “Block cookies” to “Block third-party cookies”.
• Enable “Forget me when I close this site”.
• Disable “Store contact information for future broken site reports”.
• Disable all options in the “Social media blocking” section at the bottom.
• Click on the “Content filtering” option.
• At the top you see the “Filter lists”. Click “Show full lists” and enable what you find useful to block.
Privacy & Security
• Click on the “Privacy and security” option in the left menu.
• Click on the “Delete browsing data” option.
• Click on the “On exit” option.
• Check all options.
• Click save.
• Click on the “Security” option and verify that “Standard protection” is on.
• We will go over secure DNS here: NextDNS.
• Click back.
That Last Tinkering
• Verify that “Use Google services for push messaging” is off.
• Enable the three options after that.
• Disable “Send a ‘Do Not Track’ request with your browser traffic” this can become an identifier.
• Enable “Private window with Tor”. Never use TOR in Brave!
• Disable the rest “Tor windows” and “Data collection”.
• Click on the “Search engine” option in the left menu.
• Pick either Duckduckgo.com or Brave for both Normal and Private windows.
• Disable everything else in here.
• Click on the “Extensions” option in the left menu.
• Disable “Allow Google login for extensions”.
• Disable “Media Router”.
• Enable “Widevine” as it’s required for most video.
Brave Is Now Setup
Now you’re setup with Brave browser and the correct settings. What I don’t like about brave is all the extras. They got crypto stuff and other things I care little about. Which we don’t ever need to worry about, it’s just something I am not personally into. If you are into that kind of thing it might not be a big deal for you.
Waterfox Settings
In Waterfox all I did was to tweak a few settings. After all I do not intend for this browser to be overly changed from the starting perspective because it could break streaming services.
Settings
• In the settings tab of Waterfox go to “Privacy & Security”.
• Make sure “Enchanced Tracking Protection” is set to “Strict”.
• Find and click the “Waterfox will” dropdown menu.
• Pick “use custom settings for history”.
• Disable all if you want to stay logged in otherwise only enable “Clear history when Waterfox closes”.
• Under the “Permissions” section right below, click each option and disable all.
• Enable “Block pop-up windows”.
• Enable “Warn you when websites try to install”.
• Enable “Load images automatically”.
• Enable “Enable Javascript”.
• In the “Security” section.
• Disable all.
• Scroll down to the “HTTPS-Only Mode”.
• Set it to “Enable HTTPS-Only Mode in all windows”.
• In the “DNS over HTTPS”, set it to “Ultra Protection”.
• Then “Never fall back to system DNS”.
uBlock Origin
uBlock Origin is a great extension. After all I personally don’t use it in Waterfox as I am using the browser for one purpose. The purpose is strictly watching and that is in my bookmarks So uBlock Origin is great because it can block ads. What else can it do? It can block scripts, elements, trackers, scripts and more. Start by going to the page below.
Download Ublock
After downloading it allow it to run in private windows as well. Afterwards I prefer to go to the little puzzle piece at the top next to the menu dashes. Click the puzzle piece and press the pin next to uBlock Origin to pin it so you can always click it.
• Right-click the uBlock Origin icon and press options.
• Scroll to the bottom and click on “I am an advanced user”.
• Click on “Filters” at the top and select the filters you want. I selected most of them.
• Click on the “Apply Changes” button.
Now if you go to duckduckgo.com or bravesearch.com and left click uBlock Origin, then you will see there is a few fields. The rule is, if its red it blocks. And there are two lanes the right side is for local blocking so if you locally want to unblock things that’s how. If you block on the left then it globally block.
Blocking Objects
You can right-click on any object on a website and click block an element. I usually don’t use it very much as I don’t often encounter things I want to block unless an ad or something slipped through the cracks.
About Blocking
Finally, If I block 3rd party on all sites then I am sometimes not going to see pictures. I don’t mind not seeing the article picture, I read the text but do know there will be a million small and big squares where the content used to be. Because often the pictures are not inline, meaning they’re loaded from elsewhere making it 3rd party. Sometimes blocking 3rd party will break the page. Then you can locally unblock it so its not a one or the other kind of situation. When you first learned how to use it you will be well protected and be able to view whatever page you need. Anyways this is a great tool and if you can live with missing items on pages, block it.
